Fellow ATS members, I am scared....

Now I am a fairly no non-sense kind a gal. I do not cry often and I am not easily intimidated at all. In my life I have been through some very hard times and always pulled through. I always had faith that I would get through and everything would work out fine. I just new deep down me and my family would come out OK and we always have.

But guys I am getting down right scared. I do not have an optimistic feeling about this at all. I have tried, I keep on trucking but deep down I feel like things are only going to get worse.

There are no jobs and the ones that are available have like 500 people applying for the same position. The grocery store has become absolutely ridiculous as far as prices. More and more businesses are closing.

I am not a gloom and doom kind of person, I am always the one thinking stuff like "if there is a will there is a way" or "there is a viable solution to every problem". But it aint looking to good as far as the economy. I feel like there will be much suffering next year. Once many people run out of unemployment benefits and still can not find work S will HTF. People will become desperate.

I feel like me and family will survive but I think it will be hard. My husband and I have been trying to prepare so this weekend we killed some rabbits and I cooked them, I swear to sweet heaven I was so sick after I cooked them I could not eat dinner at all that night. The rabbit cooked up nice and white and looked a lot like fried chicken but just the thought, oh I could not do it. I am afraid of what it will be like if and when we have to eat stuff like that just to survive.

We have cut down on most luxuries and I miss eating out at nice restaurants a couple of times a week, now we out like never! I went to the grocery today. This is my list...

1 small bag of lemons
2 lbs hamburger meat
5 packs of kool aid
1 can of soup
1 box of crackers
2 twelve packs of Diet Coke with Splenda
1 large bag of Splenda
1 bottle of Dawn dish detergent
1 small bag of onions
1 12 pack of toilet paper

My total at the check out was 54.00 and change. I thought to myself, it will not be long till I will have to learn to eat (gag) rabbit.

Is any one else getting scared with what we are seeing and feeling? I just need some support and would like to connect with others that have been effected by the global collapse that the media says is getting better, but it don't feel better to me... How about you?

Maybe go to an off brand store to stock up....quality at places like ALdi are no different.

reply to post by Krystian


Oh I shop ar Aldi's and we have stocked up in our pantry. But I went to a discount store today to pick up somethings we prefer in name brand like diet coke and splenda. Our income last year to this year went down over $50,000. We are making it now but next year when our unemployment runs out and we still cannot find a decent job, what then?

When i was a kid, we ate out like once a month, if that. Small town. Used to have the fish and chips with extra tartar sauce.
Now, amidst this recession (less major in canada?), I've had wage cuts of about 30 percent. Lost my apartment, but landed right back on my feet.
Help from family anda little luck. Not money, but a place to stay for awhile while i put away a few grand.
I moved too, and i cut down to half a packa day and i took my truck off the road.
Oddly enough, i'm in the best financial shape of my life about two months after i lost my apartment...

Moral?

You have to be willing to take risks, relocate, and have a positive attitude. It takes some getting used to, no truck of my own, but now, my old man pays half the insurance he used to, and so do i, and we both get around.....want and need are two very different things.

Now, I eat all the fish i want, amidst apparently, the worst recession ever.
Keep a positive attitude and don't lose your faith.

reply to post by Melissa101


You are starting to see what people have been harping on for years! While i am not placing blame on ANYONE, i am simply stating that this has been along time coming.

An extra source of income is scrapping aluminum. It isnt much, but it is better than nothing. Also look into some indoor gardening to save pennies and start researching government programs while they last.

most importantly... INFORM YOURSELF! Read like a banshee, listen to talk radio and turn off the rif raf that has no meaning. Learn about the stock market and get savy with basic finance, learn to shoot a gun, learn to identify wild edibles. learn to network with friends and family for dire circumstance.

I wish you luck in your situation.

-Wx

Band together with people in a similar predicament as you are (find out how many fellow slaves there are!), there might come a time when you may have to fight to keep your home and not have them take it away because you have to have money to pay rent on your land.

If you don't want to be forced to give up your land to a foreign investor, well... fight back and make the PTB vomit with rage. The plan was to make people leave their land like sheeple! The cheek!

If SHTF, don't go anywhere immediately. Where are you going to go... to a FEMA camp where they will 'take care' of you?

Learn how to grow food, fight to have bylaws overthrown in your town so you can raise chickens or bees and hang your clothes out to dry.

A depression is a time for friendship. Pass off flyers, rally for food co-ops, materials co-ops or group dinners to avoid wasting food... talk of suing the government, suing corporations... the possibilities are endless...

Hun, don't be scared. You get nowhere with this sort of attitude. Oh, how I have had to learn this lesson. Forget about the bs in life. Just concentrate on the necessities. You will, most probably be fine. I recall eating hard taco shells with grape jelly on them and water. For a week, until I got a job putting up drywall. It only lasted a little bit, but then I got more jobs beause I worked my ass off and people wanted me to work for them. It helped. And pretty soon I was eating vegies and hambuger meat. Just keep plugging away, and remember there is no job that is beneath you when you are hungry. And if you do well in that #ty job, somebody just might take notice.

Man, I thought I was alone.


Times are not what they used to be. Those resistant to change.... will probably suffer a lot.

I miss my ATS people. And I probably always will.

This is as good a thread as any, to wish well to everyone.

I really hope there are good times ahead, but I feel like We The People followed evil around for too long, and now Evil has finally led us to the slaughter.

For those who live past depopulation phase -- Congratz. I hope that times are peaceful and lovely.

reply to post by heyo


Im glad it worked out for you.. but the only moral in your story is:

Move in with family to live for free while saving a few grand.

It's no wonder you're in the best financial shape of your life?

Melissa101


First off, if you're gunna kill the bunny, at least eat the bunny. Second, Splenda will kill you.

I wouldn't worry to much yet about next year.. it's out of your reach, you cannot change the way the economy will be, and worrying about it will only effect your daily lives. Look around for Government jobs, the government is expanding at the fastest rate since the New Deal.. this also includes the Contractors that work for the Gov..

The economic future looks bleak, but there is always hope we avoided the worst of the worst.. this Winter will tell us how we are going to fare, it will gauge the wellness of the economy. If we make it through the Winter as far as economic growth and better retail earnings, then in all likelihood we are going to see a recovery right around the corner.

Coupons are your friend! We have a food chain near us called Bi-Low. They have 24/7 double coupon saving up to $0.99 and again up to $1.99. Combine that with a in store discount card and in store sales and if you are older Senior on certain days it is Senior discount day it gets insane.

My old man gets FREE I repeat FREE stuff at the grocery store practically EVERY time we go shopping. I am in AWE at what he walks out of the store with without paying 1 cent for! I RAGED at him the first time for telling me while we were shopping that he was getting the item for free. But sure as heck at the register it rings up as ZILCH.

The last time I think he got a FREE gallon of name brand orange juice due to having a double coupon and the item was marked down to like 2 dollars.

We bought 20 packets of yummy cupcakes for like $0.05 a piece. They even have some crazy thing called "OOPS over bake" where they bake a bunch of something and it doesn't sell so they put DOUBLE discount stickers on them. They also have these stickers that they attach to items called "Close-Out" where they are trying to get rid of for whatever reason (discontinued, new packaging, close to expiration) and the prices can get insanely low!

What he does also is he gets coupons sent to him in his EMAIL and he prints them out on his printer. My Mom and my Dad both have a large bag just chock FULL of coupons for everything. They last for a few months so you can hold onto them until it is double coupon day and the item is on sale.

I used to make fun of them but I have since fallen on tough financial times myself and have learned the ways of the Older GURU shoppers.

So we get Coupons, Double and TRIPLE coupons, Senior Discount, In Store Discount Card, Reduced Stickers, DOUBLE reduced stickers, OOPS over bake discounts and Close-Out stickers. Sometimes you can get a Tetris with like 4 of these things all combined to where the price of the item is like NEGATIVE 2 Dollars. Unfortunately they will not pay you to take the item but you do get it FREE of charge!

reply to post by Melissa101

Hi Melissa101! What are you doing in this place that is globally melting away like ice cream in Arizona sun?

I see that we must put aside that Benedict XVI/Obama XXXXIV unholy communion and deal with just LIV, meaning your grocery bill. 54 bucks!!!! Ayayayayayayaya . . . No wonder that you resorted to cannibalism and ate that rabbi.

I kept records and found out that food prices have increased by some 35% since 2005. The rising gas prices made it happen that way.

I think that you would have to fight back by finding another grocery store. Let me show you a pic.
www.hswconstructors.com...

If you get this store nearby then the switch is mandatory. But I’m afraid that this is not the case, coz you would be already shopping there.

I went there today and here is my receipt, which I recovered from trash for the occasion:

F&E APPLE JUICE................1.98
F&E FRUIT PUNCH...............1.98
F&E FRUIT PUNCH...............1.98
YOP ORIG FRIDGE PK S.......3.99
SFB FR VAN COFFEE............4.98
F&E CANNELLINI BNS...........0.69
LC CHICKEN ENCHILADA.....2.19
LC CHICKEN ENCHILADA......2.19
LEAN PKTS PEPP PIZ............ 1.59
UNC BEN SPN FLV RIC..........1.79
F&E BREAKFAST BURRIT.......2.99
F&E CHILI NO BEANS............1.49

TOTAL.....................................27.84

My expense is a half of yours. One of the tricks is the F&E – made for Fresh and Easy. It’s generic stuff. The brand, prime quality stores are getting really expensive to shop at.

For some folks, the standard of living really plummeted. It all depends on the overhead and what they are going to give up.

I think the situation kind of stabilized and won’t get much worse.

I am very glad of where I live - I live in SE Asia - and as long as you don't mind the local food, I can buy a cooked meal for $1.00 - that's eat there, or take away.

I can buy fresh fruit and vegetables for very little also - like 20c a kilogram - so 10c a pound around about. All this food is also grown naturally without the chemical poisons.

Hi maybe you should try changing you diet to stuff without artificial sweetener and MSG. Both of them can make you very ill.

5 packs of kool-aid? That's the only thing I find disturbing in all of this. Why can't people just drink water, if possible RO water, why must they poison themselves. sigh

Do you have the grounds to plant a garden?

If not there a lot of neat things out there to plant compact gardens. Stuff like this:

www.shopoursavings.com...

I started planting a few months back. Also, if you do have some ground raising chickens is very helpful too!

Don't let your life be ruled by fear.

Times are tough? Keep it in prespective. Things could be worse. Lots of tips to stretch your money further out there.

Rabbit is a very common source of meat in many countries. I have ate it many times and have no qualms in doing so. But you know meat isn't the only source of protein. Sometimes it seems like we think we are entitled to it, the west that is. If you must eat meat , learn to expand your horizons. Horse, rabbit, ostrich - all excellent sources of meat and at least where I am, usually cheaper then beef or pork. ( and yummy too )

Strip yourselves of expectations, I don't expect to go out to eat, buy new clothes, or go on fancy vacations - to me those things are treats, not essentials.

My self worth isn't based on my bank balance, or lack thereof. Because I expect little, I won't miss it when it's not a treat anymore.

I think it's time to lower your expectations - learn to live on less and let go of our money=happiness mentality.

Take all of this in as a net positive thing...

We are simply returning to a sustainable standard of living...there is no negativity about it, unless you are addicted to excess, like most bloated Americans...

Life will take on meaning again, simple pleasures will once again exhilarate you...

Your meaningful relationships will strengthen their bonds..

Your sense of community will begin to take its rightful precedence...

You will experience life again....embrace it!!

Some areas have Angel Food Ministries. You can get a box of food for $30.

You can get Dawn sometimes from a Dollar Tree for a buck.

The toilet paper is a ripoff these days. The size of the rolls are much smaller. What is now a double roll is what the roll used to be, and for twice as much money or sometimes more than that. They have a megaroll that's the size of what a double roll used to be. The double rolls when they first came out wouldn't even fit quite right on toilet paper holder because they were so thick, but now they fit just like the regular roll of toilet paper. Messed up and most people haven't noticed.

People need to combine resources and share homes and such. Only do it with someone you trust though, of course.

I have to echo what a poster above me said--learn to use coupons! It doesn't take as much time as you think. I'm a mom with a full-time job, a side business, and a large garden to tend, and I still find time to find the deals each week.

I rarely pay more than $25 bucks for a whole cart full of groceries, and it's usually much less than that. Most times the only real cost on the bill is meat. One of the chains near me has triple coupon weekends about every 6 weeks. On those trips, my bill is usually less than $5.00. Watch the sales, match the coupons to the sales, and you'll clean up. CVS, RiteAid, and Walgreens also have programs that make things free or cheap. I get most of my cereal at drugstores because I can often get the name brand stuff for 50 cents a box. And toiletries? If I ever pay for toothpaste again it will be a sign of the apocalypse.

There are a couple of websites that have been a huge help in learning the ropes. U2U me and I'll send you the links.

This is the globalist dream coming true. For whatever their real reasons are. Whether they are the "good" altruistic globalists or the "bad" NWO globalists so ad-nauseum debated around here doesn't even matter at this base level.

The reality is that raising the standard of living for most of the world is going to bring some of us down. A lot. To bring things to a level, for there to be rising up, there has to be a coming down. There are only so many things around. Someone's going to suffer. And in this case...well it's obvious....the rising up of some is at others' expense.

The globalists sold you a bill of goods...allowed you to believe that somehow the others would magically rise to already achieved (through hard work and careful planning) levels of some countries without others coming down. Not true. Not true at all.

And t he realists saw this coming and tried to warn you. But until you were individually affected, you refused to see it coming. And this too was part of their plan...the built-in side benefit of divisiveness on many levels (economic, religious, political spectrum) because it delayed the reaction of people actually banding together to stop it.

You can find examples of this going decades back, where people were both so willing to take it (whether they were on the side that benefited or the side who did not) and so odd in their thinking and responses that they allowed this to happen.

Take fuel for example. We in the U.S. are now paying more for fuel. The Europeans took it up the you know what for years...allowed it to happen and groused about it but really did nothing, and now they either sit back all smugly and laugh at us when we're shocked. Like that's supposed to accomplish something positive for anyone...like that will really effect some change.

Another example was people losing jobs. When you still had one, you looked at them as unfortunate and you felt a little smug and maybe grateful or maybe not. It was always happening to someone else until it happened to you. You didn't look at what was happening and act to help them. You didn't "band with" the unions in the 80s when they warned you that jobs were being sent to Mexico. No you either kept your head down and tried not to make noise or be noticed so that you might keep yours or you figured it wasn't your problem or you didn't even notice.

It might now be too late. But maybe not. Protectionism (demand and buy American or European or Australian or what have you) and isolationism (fix your own country first before you play overseas) so that some sanity may once again be applied and so that we may prevent even more of this happening to more people and recover what we claim to have held dear is the ONLY way.